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8th Meeting of the IUFRO Working Group on Fagaceae and Nothofagaceae

POSTPONED UNTIL JANUARY 2022!
First announcement
The IUFRO working group “Evolution and Adaptation of Fagaceae and Nothofagaceae” will hold its eighth meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico from Jan 17 to 21, 2021. This working group, initially focused on the genetics of oaks, held its first meeting in 1991 in France and has subsequently met in the USA, Europe and Asia. This will be the first meeting in Latin America. Oaxaca is a major center of biodiversity in Mexico. This meeting will also be held in conjunction with a meeting of the Global Conservation Consortium for Oaks, led by the Morton Arboretum and Botanical Gardens Conservation International. The theme of the meeting will place an emphasis on the integration and broadening of research to address larger questions spanning taxonomic, geographic, spatial, and temporal scales. We hope to establish an international community of scientists to set and pursue goals that will sustain and manage tree diversity and adaptive capacity.

We warmly invite scientists and students at all levels of biological organization, from molecules and cells to ecosystems and biogeography, to join us to share a multidisciplinary and integrated view of current research on these two important families. We particularly want to reach out to experts and students of Nothofagaceae, given the proximity of the venue to its natural distribution. We will be adopting measures so that a distributed partially virtual meeting could be held if international travel is limited, primarily through online recorded video presentations by participants.
Several sessions will be organized around invited speakers and submissions from participants. These sessions will include but are not necessarily limited to:
- population and quantitative genetics
- phylogenetics and systematics
- macroevolution and co-evolution
- eco-physiology and anatomy
- forest ecology and biotic interactions
- conservation biology.
Dates: Jan 17-21 2021
Location: Oaxaca, Mexico

Preliminary agenda
Jan 17: Opening ceremony (evening); keynote speaker; reception
(Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán)
Jan 18-19: Presentation and poster sessions
(Hotel Misión de los Ángeles Oaxaca)
Jan 19: Banquet (Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán)
Jan 20: Day excursions (2-3 choices including cultural and biological sites)
Jan 21: Working groups and closing ceremony (Antiguo convento de San Pablo)
The meeting agenda will be designed to encourage and improve the level and depth of discussion and to achieve tangible outputs, given the great opportunity of having the world’s experts on this globally important family of trees together for a few days. Prior to the meeting, the scientific committee will identify several important outcomes, for example a community-based publication setting out a future collaborative path for research and integration for our scientific effort across fields and disciplines or plans for collaborative integrated proposals to multiple funding sources.
We strongly encourage you to pre-register (click here) so that we can better plan and arrange a meeting that will accommodate everyone who plans to attend. The process will take only a few minutes but will provide us with valuable information for logistics. One to multiple day excursions in the city of Oaxaca and its surrounding environs will be offered, before and after the meeting, as well.

Accommodations
Hotel Misión de los Ángeles Oaxaca - the main venue hotel, a 20-30 minute walk from the old center of town with all the conveniences of an international hotel. We will arrange for a block of rooms to be reserved for participants. Estimated room rates will be ~$50 USD/night.
In the old center of Oaxaca and the immediate surroundings, numerous hotels of varying sizes and degrees of luxury are available, from the Quinta Real (~$300 USD/night) to many boutique hotels in small converted residences (~$60-100 USD/night). Check Trip Advisor for info, reviews, rankings and rates. Additionally, AirBnB also offers extensive and affordable choices in the city. If sufficient demand exists, we will offer bus service from the center of town to the Hotel Mision de Los Angeles on the two main conference days.

Pre-Registration
A form for pre-registration is available here. The registration site will open in late August.
History of the IUFRO Genetics of Quercus working group from Antoine Kremer
1991 : Arboretum des Barres, Nogent Sur Vernisson, France, September 2-6
1997 : Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA, October 12-17
2000 : Zagreb, Croatia, May 20-25
2003 : Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan, September 29 to October 3rd, Joint meeting with IUFRO Working Group « Improvement and silviculture of oaks »
2006 : Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA, September 21-30, Joint meeting with IUFRO Working Group « Improvement and silviculture of oaks »
2012 : University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, October 9-12
2017 : Chenshan Botanical Garden, Shanghai, China, November 1-3

Proceedings were produced for the first five meetings. We are working on making digital versions available.
For the two last ones, summary papers were published in New Phytologist, listed below.